Lakki Marwat best in education in KPK: DPES

PESHAWAR: Kohistan district has been declared one of the worst performing areas of the province in terms of improving education according to District Performance Evaluation System (DPES), a monthly ranking of all K-P districts on the basis of set indicators.

“Monthly ranking of districts will help us in expediting progress on key indicators of Education Sector Plan besides guiding us on the areas where more efforts are required,” said K-P Elementary and Secondary Education (E&SE) Additional Secretary Suhail Khan.

He said the evaluation indicators include student learning outcomes through 5th and 10th grade results, student attendance rate, progress on development projects in schools, increase in student’s enrolment, provision of textbooks to students, percentage of provision of stipends, delivery of furniture, optimal ratio of students and teachers and teachers’ attendance in schools.

The district ranking has been launched by the K-P Elementary and Secondary Education (E&SE) Department with the support of DFID, he said.

Sharing the first ranking results for October 2017, he said the document showed that Kohistan was one of the worst performing districts with 57 per cent score followed by Dir Upper 63. 5 per cent, Peshawar 64.37 per cent, Swat 64.44 per cent and Kohat 64.63 per cent.

Similarly, Lakki Marwat was the top performing district with 77.1 per cent score followed by Dir Lower with 75.4 per cent and Malakand with 75.2 per cent.

Suhail explained that the objective of DPES is to assess performance of districts on key education indicators in line with education sector plan and to introduce reward mechanism for better performance. Every month, the K-P E&SE will conduct district ranking and best performing districts will be rewarded while worst performing districts will be penalised.

He said the outcome of DPES was very encouraging in the very beginning of its launching in September 2017. The students’ attendance has improved by average 5% in all districts and students’ enrolment has gone up by average 3.4% in all districts. Around 68 out of 152 non-functional schools have been reopened during this period. There is also 3.8% improvement in number of schools with all four basic facilities (electricity, water, toilets and boundary wall) available.

The E&SE has formed a committee under the supervision of additional secretary which reports to the E&SE Secretary Dr Fakhre Alam on a regular basis.

Suhail said that they have started monthly ranking of districts which will not only help us in expediting progress on key indicators of Education Sector Plan but will also guide us on the areas where more efforts are required.

He said that they will focus on lowest performing districts and will make sure their performance is improved. He said that these key performance indicators will help in accountability of District Education Staff.

Pakistani columnist Farman Nawaz, who previously ran an Urdu Weekly Jirga Bannu, is the editor of The Bannu Times. Nawaz also runs an online newspaper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa News and KAS Research Journal. Nawaz has written English articles for Global Times China , Daily Outlook Afghanistan and several leading English newspapers of Pakistan. He had also worked as a blogger for Express News TV Network website.